


Sleepless in Manhattan

by Neverever



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Christmas, Fluff and Angst, Insomnia, M/M, Romance, SteveTonyFest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-07
Updated: 2013-12-07
Packaged: 2018-01-03 21:19:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1073168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neverever/pseuds/Neverever
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony has big plans for his Christmas alone in the Tower, but a bout of insomnia changes things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleepless in Manhattan

**Author's Note:**

> A SteveTonyFest gift for [monikn-n](http://monikn-n.tumblr.com/), a little holiday fic. Hope you enjoy.
> 
> (And as always, big thanks to my beta.)

Some years Tony would never have known it was the holiday season but for the sudden prevalence of red and green decorations and festive music at the charity events. Other years Tony remembered in enough time to take a vacation in a very warm and faraway place surrounded by other people escaping the oppression of the season. This was not one of those years, he reflected, as Pepper reminded him that she was leaving for a short trip to visit her extended family.

“Thank you for the use of the corporate jet, Tony,” Pepper said. 

“Sure, Pep. Where are you going again?” Tony asked distractedly as he reassembled a repulsor rig in one of the Iron Man suit gloves. Sometimes his Stark Industries office resembled an outpost of his workshop.

“Away,” Pepper said crisply. “I’ll be back beginning of next week. Have you cleared out your voicemail?”

Tony was notorious for not checking his voicemail for days. He shrugged. “I’ll have JARVIS screen the calls.”

Anxious to get away, Pepper asked for permission to send out the annual announcement that Stark Industries would be closing at noon on Christmas Eve and that staff would not be required to use vacation time. Tony signed off on the memo and the additional paperwork she pushed in front of him.

“So what are your plans, Tony? Have you heard from Rhodey?”

“Yeah, sort of. He’s on a classified mission and incommunicado for at least a week or more.”

“You’ll be fine on your own?” Pepper asked with concern.

Tony smiled at her. “Yeah, yeah. I’ve got plans and I’ll be on call for the Avengers, since they are all off somewhere.” He had a stack of frozen pizza, a ton of technical literature to plow through loaded up on the tablet, and a plan to do a major redesign of the suit; enough work to get through the holidays and then some. “Just like every year, I’ll be fine on my own,” Tony said confidently.

Pepper replied with less confidence, “Okay, Tony. I’ll see you when I get back. Don’t call me.”

 

Tony retreated to the calm of his workshop after a quick lunch. From 12 noon to 7 pm, things hummed along smoothly. Tony tore into the schematics for the suit and started the redesign, reviewing collected data and notes on the items that needed fixes or updates. He became so involved in his project that he almost did not hear JARVIS reminding him to eat.

He ventured up to the Avengers’ common kitchen. He passed through the holiday decorated living room, pausing to look at the stylish but sterile Christmas tree. Pepper had the interior designer come in and do the place up with the usual fashionable holiday trimmings, including a tree. With no presents under it. It was actually rather sad, if Tony thought about it. Tony could appreciate the efforts, but they were lost on someone who did not really care if it was Christmas or not. Pepper had mentioned that maybe his teammates would care. Tony had his doubts on that, since none of them were around to see it.

So far everything had gone according to plan. But when he went to heat up the pizza, that’s when things started to go off track. First, he attempted to microwave the pizza, but he noticed that the microwave seemed to be broken. “JARVIS, what’s wrong here?”

“Sir, it appears that the heating element is not working.”

Okay, to the oven then. When the oven finally heated up, Tony looked down at the disappointing, under-cheesed specimen in front of him. With a sigh, he ordered takeout from a fortunately open Chinese place and waited for the delivery. So much for trying to make Pepper and Steve happy by eating regularly.

It was well after 9 pm when Tony finally returned to the workshop. He turned up the music and returned to his redesign project. After a solid hour of trying to solve a particular articulation problem, his thoughts drifted to his teammates, who were all off on various trips. Thor was on a road trip of sorts with Jane, and Bruce had gone to a meditation retreat in Arizona, or possibly Idaho. Clint and Natasha were either off on a mission for SHIELD or on vacation or some odd combination of the two. Clint had not been particularly clear about that last week. And Steve. Well, he had no idea where Steve was. He had all but disappeared a couple of days after Thanksgiving without a word. Tony did not know for sure, since he had been very busy around then, and had no time free to spend with the team.

All in all, Tony was having a very frustrating evening in the workshop. He was not making progress, had probably heard that same Black Sabbath song five times in a row, and had nearly burnt off his left pinky in an impromptu welding experiment. JARVIS cheerfully chimed in that it was 2 am on Christmas. Tony decided to throw in the towel and go to bed.

At 3 am, after an hour of tossing and turning, Tony was suddenly a lot less confident about his Christmas plans. He really should have been in bed much earlier. Maybe he was just overtired. But more likely it was the tiny, little voice he heard in his head just as he was falling asleep that told him that he was destined to die alone some day. He was suddenly very much awake.

He needed at least a couple of hours of sleep. And he knew in his head it was just the 3 am paranoia that everyone gets because you are at your weakest point at 3 am. Wasn’t that called ‘the hour of the wolf’ or something? he thought groggily. Maybe Natasha would know.

He closed his eyes and drifted off again, only to wake again at 3:30 am thinking again of how completely and utterly alone he was in the world, the absolute silence of the his quiet bedroom ringing in his ears.

Tony decided to read the most boring, tedious technical article he could find, and he knew that would put him to sleep based on the title alone. And yes, the article on the tensile strength of carbon fiber did the trick and he fell asleep again. Only to wake up at 4 am feeling very much unloved and unwanted, especially since he was so utterly alone at Christmas.

He turned on the light and sat up in bed. This was ridiculous, he told himself. This had nothing to do with Christmas. Plenty of people around the world did not celebrate Christmas and did not spend time with their nearest and dearest. And he was more than perfectly fine with that state of things. It never bothered him before and it was not going to bother him now, Tony vowed. And if he could not sleep, then he was going to spend the time in the workshop. So, off he went.

After an hour of failing to make progress, Tony was overtired, annoyed to the point of anger and the owner of two new burn marks. He checked his phone and saw that it was 5 am. Despite his restlessness, Tony was willing to try for sleep again. He often went to sleep at 5 am and he was so tired he would drop off immediately.

Which did not happen. He ended up staring at the ceiling pondering how he ended up during this time of year by himself. In the past he could have found company just fine or been perfectly happy being on his own. He could call Pepper, but she would eviscerate him (as she had warned him in advance) and he did not want that. 

Just when had he become so damn needy? 

Thanksgiving. It had to be Thanksgiving, when Steve made all the Avengers have dinner together. He had not given it much thought, all he could really remember was Steve pushing him to eat a slice of warm apple pie. And even though he did not like football or sports in general, Tony had been amused as he listened to Steve and Clint banter back and forth about the games on the television. Natasha and Thor had found and hooked up a Wii and were involved in some sort of complicated competition. He had a great conversation with Bruce about his recent research as Bruce brewed his tea. 

The food had been good, the room warm, the alcohol plentiful, the companionship terrific and he had felt part of something. Whatever that was.

But the feelings all dissipated the next day when they all got back to work. Tony had an emergency of one sort or another at Stark Industries during the few weeks before Christmas. He had not really been surprised when the others went off to do whatever. Thor had been talking forever about his plans; Natasha and Clint still worked for SHIELD; and Bruce was always a careful manager of his downtime. 

But the strangest thing of all was that Steve, who had always seemed to be completely underfoot all the time before, had disappeared to God knows where. The others told Tony their plans. But there was not really any word from Steve.

Tony rubbed his eyes, which were likely burning from the lack of sleep. Now it was 6 am and Tony was feeling wrung out from being up so late and the depressing thoughts he was having. Tony was a big boy and it was not like he needed to have people around. 

He had gone to boarding school and then off to college and along the way he lost what he had for family. Not that he had been particularly close to his parents when they passed. But when they were alive, he had some sort of place to call home for the holidays. Afterwards, he floated around like the other strays at the holidays, spending it with friends and their families. Really, Christmas was a holiday for children and people with overlarge families. To Tony it was just another day.

He launched into another project in hopes this one would be better since he had stalled out on the redesign project. His thoughts drifted again to where the hell Steve was. Big, sweet Steve was always around, in the kitchen, in the gym, in the living room, and over the past three months increasingly in the workshop. You could not miss him, asking questions about Tony’s day, smiling his stupid smile, making Tony eat, drawing quietly in a chair near the windows in the living room. 

Tony needed more parts to work with and went to the supply room to rummage around for what he needed. As he was pulling down a box of screws, the shelving buckled a little and everything on the over-burdened shelves fell all over Tony and spilled onto the floor. He stared open-mouthed at the huge mess and then gave up. 

It was seven am now. He went back up to the kitchen to grab a bowl of cereal and find something on television. Thinking of how everything had gone badly since yesterday morning when Pepper left, Tony could only shrug. Whatever, not the worst Christmas he ever had. Then he could not find anything he was willing to watch or leave on even as background. Now he was so cross with everything that he could not even decide on a movie. Outside it looked raw and miserable but no snow, just gray, and more gray. He should have planned better and left for some private island paradise through New Year’s.

His phone rang. Tony stared at it. He did not remember bringing it up from the workshop and he had no idea who would be calling him. 

“Stark here.”

“Tony?” Steve asked. 

“Hey, Steve,” Tony replied, trying not to sound too surprised or happy.

“Is it okay for me to come over now?”

Why was Steve asking? He lived at the Tower. “You live here. Of course it’s fine to come over.” 

Steve replied hesitantly. “Okay, I’ll be over in an hour.” Then he hung up.

Tony stared at the phone. That was an odd conversation. He racked his brain for a possible reason. A little bell started to ring about a nearly forgotten hazy memory of something that had happened at Thanksgiving. Maybe he had been buzzed and maybe he was drunk. He was standing at the back of the television room watching his friends play video games. Lovely, beautiful Steve was returning from the bathroom and stopped to talk with Tony. They talked about random things and Tony could vividly remember Steve laughing, his blue eyes warm, red lips inviting. Steve leaned in to kiss Tony, but Tony moved away. The warm moment turned horribly awkward as Steve backpedalled and mumbled something about overstepping and being sorry.

Maybe that’s why Steve had not been around. Tony had rather crushingly turned him down, without an explanation. Tony had no idea why he done that. He liked Steve. He wanted to be his friend. Why hadn’t he handled the whole thing better? It’s not like he hadn’t turned down people before. He could write a book on the subject. Drunk, he had to chalk it up to being drunk for why he had been so cruel. Likely really, really drunk. Then Tony remembered that they had fought the next day. Not a big fight, just a few sharp words, gritted teeth, followed by stubborn silences. Then Steve disappeared.

Now, Tony felt completely miserable. He had driven Steve out of his own home to the point that Steve felt he had to ask permission to return. What kind of friend was he? And now here was Tony in the middle of a cold, corporate Christmas with an impersonal tree with impersonal ornaments. All meaningless and empty. God, he missed Steve and if only he could have that moment back at Thanksgiving, if he had kept his mouth shut for a just second the next day, then he would not end up dying alone with twenty cats in his old age.

The only solution would be was to lose himself in more work in the workshop. No one else loved like him like his work, the bots and JARVIS.

 

Tony heard the indistinct voice first, then felt the large, warm hand tapping him on the shoulder. “Tony, hey, Tony, come on, buddy, wake up,” Steve said gently. Tony struggled to stand up and rubbed his bleary eyes. He must have passed out in the lab. 

Blinking, he looked at Steve, regarding him with concern. Steve in his silly Christmas sweater and standing in his workshop was the most beautiful thing Tony had ever seen. He managed to say, “Good morning.”

“Merry Christmas,” Steve said. “Let’s get you a shower and something to eat.”

“Already ate.” Tony could take a shower. Might wake him up. Coffee though. He needed coffee. Why hadn’t he installed a coffee machine in his bathroom yet?

Steve clapped him on the shoulder. “I saw the cereal box on the island. You can do better.”

He helped Tony to the elevator to the Avengers’ floor. Then Tony continued up to his penthouse, showered quickly, and then was back down to the kitchen in an amazingly short amount of time. He found Steve already cracking eggs into a pan.

“Coffee?” Tony said hopefully. Steve pointed at the coffee machine just finishing up brewing a pot. Tony sat down at the island at the plate and silverware Steve already laid out for him. He noticed a large pile of boxes and bags stacked neatly in a corner of the kitchen. “What’s up with the mess?”

“Sam’s mother is convinced that I’ll starve if left to my own devices. So she sent me home with leftovers.”

“That’s where you’ve been?” Tony asked. He really wanted to know where Steve had gone.

Steve flipped over the omelet and stirred the hash browns. “Sam’s family had me over for Christmas Eve. But I’ve been working with SHIELD since Thanksgiving. I left you voice messages.” Steve slid one of the large coffee mugs over to Tony. 

“Umm, I don’t really check my voicemail.”

“Oh,” Steve replied carefully. He put the finished omelet in front of Tony and then started one for himself. “I didn’t realize that. I was called away rather suddenly and ended up traveling around various places in Asia.” He plated his omelet. “Maybe I should have sent an email.”

“That’s okay,” Tony said. “I don’t check those either.”

Tony was not particularly gifted at reading people and their emotions, but even someone as oblivious as Tony was could see that Steve was upset over something. And Tony really did not want Steve to be upset. 

“What’s up, buttercup?” he asked, tucking into the very good omelet.

“Nothing.” Steve stood at the island eating his omelet. He looked angelic with his blond hair and gorgeous face. 

Tony ached to touch him. Steve was being so good to him when he did not deserve it. “Are we cool, Steve? No hard feelings or anything?” Tony was surprised to find that he was scared of what Steve might say.

Steve thought for a few seconds. “We’re cool,” he said with a smile. 

After breakfast, they ended up in the living room. Steve started to flip through the channels looking for a college football game. Tony sat next to him, settling into the couch for a day of reading. They sat in companionable silence for a few hours, with Steve producing snacks from the kitchen on a regular basis. At some point, Tony fell asleep and then woke up covered in a blanket. Steve sat on the couch looking innocent, though he was muttering something dark under his breath at the game on the television.

Tony got up and stretched. “Hey, look at that. It’s snowing.” The snow was coming down in large white, fluffy flakes. 

“Oh, it’s beautiful,” Steve said behind him. Steve looked around the room. “So what’s the deal with the tree? Yours?”

“Pepper,” Tony said. 

Steve frowned a little. “It’s not quite right. I’ll be right back.” Steve scooted off to his room and came back with paper, scissors and markers. He also stuck a wrapped present under the tree. 

“What are you doing?” Tony asked.

“Making ornaments. Here -- try it.” Steve pushed over paper. While he drew, colored and cut out circles and other shapes, Tony folded paper airplanes. “I did this for my tree growing up,” Steve said offhandedly. “My mom always worked and I spent the time decorating.”

“You spent Christmas alone?” Tony threw the airplanes into the tree.

“Mostly. It was a lot of just Mom and me, and then it was the orphanage.” Steve took more care putting his ornaments on the tree. He stood back to take in the tree.

Tony thought the tree looked so much better with their homemade ornaments. “So who is the present for?”

“Later,” Steve replied vaguely. “Want to watch a movie?”

JARVIS loaded up “A Christmas Story” while Steve popped popcorn on the stove. They ended up on the couch, sitting a little closer than usual, movie on the television, white, fluffy snow coming down outside, popcorn and beer in hand. Tony knew that Steve would love the movie and thought it was always wonderful to watch Steve laugh. And maybe he could wriggle in closer to Steve. By the time the movie was over, Tony was leaning on Steve’s shoulder. He looked up at Steve and in the next minute they were kissing. 

Tony broke off the kiss. “Sorry about Thanksgiving.”

“My fault,” Steve replied, pulling Tony closer into his arms. “I shouldn’t have made a move on you when you were drunk.”

Tony hit Steve on the arm. “Don’t be ridiculous -- I was wrong and then I didn’t return your calls. Which I’m sorry about too.” He kissed Steve’s jaw. “Let’s never talk about this again.” 

Steve smiled broadly and kissed Tony back. 

After a wonderful afternoon of lazy making-out on the couch, Tony asked about the present. 

“Oh, I saw something in Thailand and thought of you.” Steve gave him the box. 

Tony tore into the present and unwrapped a red and gold hoodie with a large “Iron Man, number one fan” label. He started to laugh. It was a great present. He looked up at Steve. “I don’t have anything for you,” he said ruefully.

Steve hugged him. They looked around the room, at the snow falling outside, the tree covered in paper ornaments and airplanes, the mess and food on the couch and coffee table. Steve brushed back Tony’s hair out of his eyes and kissed his forehead. “Tony, you gave me the one of the best Christmases ever.”

Tony breathed in Steve’s scent, which reminded him of comfort food, nights on the couch, and home. Looking into his deep blue eyes, Tony felt loved and wanted, and no longer alone. “No, thank you, Steve. This is the best Christmas ever.” He snuggled in close to Steve. “I bet it’s going to be a terrific New Year.”

“As long we don’t have to fight sentient goo creatures again. Could pass on that,” Steve shuddered.

Tony nodded in vigorous agreement. “I could too.” He pulled Steve over to the couch. “Let’s watch another movie together.”


End file.
